FAYETTEVILLE -- University of Arkansas Interim Chancellor Charles Robinson on Monday told about 70 students who gathered to hear about efforts to stop sexual violence that the campus is committed to doing more to prevent assaults after "missteps" in the previous academic year.
Robinson spoke at a kickoff event for It's On Us week, a yearly initiative featuring student-sponsored and UA Greek Life events held to rally against sexual assault.
A student-led petition this past spring called for changes in UA's response to sexual assault, including the hiring of more trauma-informed staff for the campus Title IX office that investigates and responds to complaints.
UA has hired a new Title IX coordinator, Shanita Pettaway, set to begin work next week, and a university spokesman has said that a new case manager and two Title IX investigators will be hired. UA's website on Monday listed one investigator for the office.
"We've hired a lot of people, because we know that this is important," Robinson said Monday.
Students last year criticized a Feb. 17 message to campus after three rapes had been reported in less than a month at UA residence halls.
The emailed message stated that students must "exercise good judgment in situations where there is additional risk or heightened vulnerability," including "after consuming alcohol." The message also stated that "the reality is that most individuals reporting an assault know the person who harmed them and often describe the person as someone they felt they could trust."
Students critical of the message said it used victim-blaming language and failed to state the importance of consent in sexual encounters.
"There have been some missteps in the past," Robinson said Monday. "But I want you to know that those missteps did not come from a lack of care. They came from a lack of understanding about what the messaging was, and we're going to do better"
Under Title IX, schools receiving federal funding generally must respond to student reports of sexual assault and sexual harassment, including by providing supportive measures -- such as class schedule or room changes, for example -- to students reporting misconduct. Colleges must also investigate and provide a fair process to determine if misconduct occurred.
TITLE IX OFFICE
This past spring, students also shared personal testimonies critical of UA's Title IX office that were collected via social media by student government leaders. UA's previous Title IX coordinator, Liz Means, resigned at the end of April after serving in the role for just over a year.
Coleman Warren, president of UA's Associated Student Government, at the event Monday said the February email was a "failure."
"We've been so far behind on supporting survivors of sexual assault, and where should we be going? What's the future look like? Our future should look like a campus where sexual assault is reported because survivors actually trust the Title IX office, and it's going to take a lot to build that trust," Warren said.
Warren also spoke about the role of students, describing how the campus in the future should be one "where sexual assault is less common, because our community is aware of what consent is, and how to protect each other."
He also used the word "failure" to describe a legal settlement that gained notoriety when a recent graduate called out the university on social media for paying $20,000 to a former student found responsible under university policy for assaulting her.
Gillian Gullett, a May 2020 graduate, on social media criticized the payment and the university for failing to update her about settlement talks with the former student identified in court documents as "John Doe." Gullett has given the Democrat-Gazette permission to use her name.
Warren, a senior from Farmington, helped Gullett and the previous academic year's student body president, Julia Nall, in creating the online petition this past spring, which he referred to Monday as "in many ways" the "minimum" response from the university.
One of the petition's demands called for the creation of a fund to assist campus survivors of sexual violence, and UA has seeded such a fund with $20,001, a spokesman has said.
The "John Doe" former student had filed a lawsuit in federal district court claiming that gender discrimination and a lack of due process led to the university wrongly sanctioning him for misconduct. Court documents stated "Doe" was allowed to graduate but required "to complete Title IX training, 10 hours of community service and an online sexual violence accountability course."
A campus panel in 2018 found him responsible for violating the school's sexual harassment and sexual misconduct policy by a 2-1 vote, doing so on appeal after UA's Title IX coordinator at the time had found him not responsible. The university uses a preponderance-of-evidence standard, so cases are decided based on whether something is more likely than not to have occurred.
The settlement paid to "Doe" came after a federal appeals court ruled that his lawsuit could continue despite a district judge's earlier dismissal of the case. No criminal charges were ever filed against "Doe."
CASE TOTALS
Amanda McQuitty, the student president of UA's Panhellenic Council, on Monday said students should speak out against sexual assault. The council includes representatives from sororities on a campus where about half of all women first-year students join a sorority, according to university data.
"It's on us to continue the conversation and speak loudly against sexual violence that occurs on our campus. It's on us to hold each other accountable," McQuitty said. John Wilson, president of UA's Interfraternity Council, also spoke Monday against sexual assault.
UA's recently published annual security report listed eight reported rapes in 2020, plus five cases categorized as fondling.
Experts say, however, that yearly statistical reports fail to capture the full extent of sexual assault.
Nationally, one out of every three sexual assaults were reported to police in 2019, according to U.S. Department of Justice data based on crime victimization surveys. Researchers studying campus sexual assault have also found undercounts in reported cases when compared with results from student surveys.
In a 2017 UA survey, students were asked, "Have you experienced sexual contact without your consent since you became a student at this school?" A total of 266 students answered yes, or 15% out of 1,772 who answered the question.
This fall semester, UA has launched a survey to gauge students' sense of belonging on a campus with a total fall enrollment that topped 29,000 students.
"Without safety, students cannot feel like they belong," Warren said. "And if we're not supporting survivors of sexual assault, we do not have safety on this campus. We cannot create belonging."